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A Story Exposes How the Chinese Government is Fueling Elephant Slaughter

There’s been a lot of hard-edged coverage of the bloody burst of African elephanticide of late, including the new series coming from Jeffrey Gettleman of The Times and “Agony and Ivory,” Alex Shoumatoff’s devastating Vanity Fair portrait of the ivory flow from Africa to Asia.

But “Blood Ivory,” in the October edition of National Geographic, provides two fresh and vitally important angles on this unfolding carnage. Investigative reporter Bryan Christy and photographer Brent Stirton provide an intimate portrait of the booming trade in Buddhist and Catholic icons and other religious objects carved out of ivory. More importantly, the story shows how, at several levels, the Chinese government has cornered the ivory market and, by raising prices, intensified poaching pressure on elephants. China’s tactics have completely undercut the goals of a 2008 “auction” of 115 tons of confiscated African ivory to Japan and China that was organized with the assent of countries bound by the international treaty known as Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The idea was the sale would flood the market and drop prices, stifling the illicit trade. Here’s what actually happened, as reported by Christy:

First, the sale was not a competitive auction at all, as it turned out:

Before they left for Africa, the Japanese team of buyers flew to Beijing, where they made a strategic suggestion. Since Japanese use primarily medium-size, high-quality tusks for hanko and Chinese prefer either large, whole tusks for big sculptures or small pieces for decorative touches, the Japanese proposed that each country bid on separate types of ivory and keep all the prices low.

Second, once the Chinese buyers, in essence agents for the Chinese government, had acquired the ivory, they did not flood the market:

Through its craft association, CACA, the government charged entrepreneur Xue Ping $500 a pound, a markup of 650 percent, and imposed fees on the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory that brought the company’s costs to $530 a pound for Grade A ivory. China also devised a ten-year plan to limit supply and is releasing about five tons into its market annually. The Chinese government, which controls who may sell ivory in China, wasn’t undercutting the black market—it was using its monopoly power to outperform the black market.

Applying the secretariat’s logic that low prices and high volumes chase out smugglers, China’s high prices and restricted volumes would now draw them in. The decision to allow China to buy ivory has indeed sparked more ivory trafficking, according to international watchdog groups and traders I met in China and Hong Kong.

I spoke this morning with Christy (also the author of an amazing portrait of the global reptile smuggling trade, “The Lizard King“) and asked him if — in his three years of reporting — he saw any path that could change prospects for Africa’s assailed elephant herds. He said he hoped that by revealing the extent of ivory use for religious icons, the article might create pressure on Buddhist and Catholic leadership to seek changes in norms. “You have religion on one end driving corruption and death on the other end,” he said.

The prime opportunity, he said, lies in a return to a strict ban and greater commitment by the international community to help governments enforce laws on the ground in Africa and along the smuggling routes from there to markets in Asia.

“An ivory ban is only thing we’ve seen that’s worked,” he told me. “When there was a ban in place, elephant populations recovered. They relaxed the ban and poaching has soared.”

Still, without more cooperation from China, he said, all bets are off. “The thing the world has never seen before is an economically powerful China, and the elephant that is China will crush the elephant in Africa.”

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.